best setup for home/mobile 16 track studio?

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pretzels
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best setup for home/mobile 16 track studio?

Post by pretzels » Wed Nov 09, 2011 2:50 pm

hey guys,
i am at a crossroads here. i have been using pro tools 9 to edit and monitor tracks at home using a MOTU 828 mkii. pretty soon it looks like the HD rig I have been tracking on will become no longer available, so I am trying to spec out the best route to go in getting a 16 track home/mobile rig up and running.

I am squared away with preamps, patchbay, and stuff but am wondering what the best way to go is for converters and interfacing into the computer. I would like to use a laptop instead of a tower, although I do worry about latency as I will be using this rig for primary tracking, editing, et al.

For converters, I am considering either a two HD 192s, one HD192 with extra A/D card for 16in/8out, or perhaps a lynx aurora 16 with either the AES-16e or LT-USB card. For DAW I am using Pro Tools 9 (not-HD) with MPTK2.

Based on my research so far, the 192s would require a HD Core card and Magma enclosure to get into the expresscard slot on my HP Pavilion laptop.

So that would be around $3K just to be able to use AES with either the 192 or Aurora 16. Would I be able to get by in terms of latency by using an Aurora 16 with the LT-USB card? Then I could bypass the Magma and go direct into my laptop, correct? Although the 192 is cheaper than the Aurora, it seems like the cost of the enclosure and HD Core card would make the Aurora/USB a cheaper option in the end?

Thanks for your help, guys. I am still trying to wrap my head around all this stuff...where's the aspirin???

cheers,
P
ball means, dude.

www.glennlabs.net

kayagum
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Post by kayagum » Sat Nov 12, 2011 6:36 am

Consider the Allen & Heath ZED R16 or even the GSR24 if you have the budget. It's like getting a great board attached to more than decent converters. You can even lightpipe 8 additional inputs. Cool digital routing allows use of plugins or outboard effects ITB or OTB. EQ on each channel is excellent (4 bands, 2 parametric). Single firewire connection btw board and PC.

Only downsides are no groups on board, Firewire can be tricky to match chipsets, and earlier models had a weird grounding issue. Search on Gearslutz for the monster thread for all of the info you'd want.

KoffeeKommando
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Post by KoffeeKommando » Sat Nov 12, 2011 9:33 am

StarTech.com 2 Port ExpressCard Laptop 1394a Firewire Adapter Card (EC13942): Electronics - http://amzn.com/B000RKUKMG

or

Lacie Fw 800 EXPRESSCARD/34: Electronics - http://amzn.com/B004DHZ9RU

Get the Aurora with Firewire? Game over (for now)?

pretzels
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Post by pretzels » Sat Nov 12, 2011 2:28 pm

thanks, guys! that is an interesting option i hadn't considered. i was thinking of possibly getting a board but really only for monitoring purposes. i have 16 channels of outboard pres right now and some nice outboard compressors. i would love to avoid getting an expensive AES16e card and use either firewire or USB, but i am curious about latency issues while running a lot of playback tracks during overdubs, etc. i wonder if the A&H Zed using firewire 400 would still have latency problems in that scenario?
ball means, dude.

www.glennlabs.net

KoffeeKommando
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Post by KoffeeKommando » Sat Nov 12, 2011 3:31 pm

It's all in the drivers.

Zed uses Dice II FW chipset I believe. Those are not very good.
High latency. It's not that they don't work...just that other hardware will work better. You seriously notice the performance drop as you decrease buffer setting. See charts here:

http://dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency.htm

"The results for the 2 interfaces are near identical and on further investigation I discovered they share the exact same under bonnet OEM Firewire controller and base drivers , which Focusrite and Presonus have licensed from TC Electronics - Dice II. It is well known that the Dice II has been less than stellar in the performance department, but I think the results may still surprise some.
LLP - Low Latency Performance at 064 samples was terrible , with the session clearly breaking up at around 40-50% ASIO load , CPU loadings were even less , so it was severely hobbling the potential resource overhead of the system. "

"Well at least we can conclude that the Dice II powered units have remained consistent, unfortunately its in the wrong direction. "

"For anyone requiring decent LLP , avoiding anything with a Dice II would be highly recommended."


Here is the word from A&H:
"The ZED DICE drivers are supplied to Allen & Heath by TC Applied Technologies Ltd. They are customised versions of
drivers used in generic FireWire devices used extensively throughout the Pro Audio industry. "
zed-r16_drivercompatibility.pdf - http://bit.ly/vHxZUd


The Lynx would probably smoke it as those guys *make* the hardware and it's their very own driver software. Notice the price on the Aurora.

"LynxTwo C - I was hoping to test a current AES16e and Aurora combo but the loan units didn't eventuate so I dusted off an old PCI Lynx TWO C card to at least get a heads up on the performance of the current driver. Double Playback Buffering has been disabled ( still have no idea why Lynx thought it needed implementing ). The card performed extremely well only being bettered by the 2 PCIe RME units , its a shame that these PCI legacy cards are not suitable for the current Intel chipsets with the non native PCI, hopefully Lynx will eventually update the Lynx TWO line to PCIe as well."

The Aurora seems pretty "future proof". FW now, then get a PCIe card for desktop later. Lynx could even make a Thunderbolt interface addon if that ever takes off. Single high speed PCIe cable to a laptop. Hope PC's get that soon.

kayagum
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Post by kayagum » Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:09 pm

You can make music or obsess over specs.

(And yes I work with spec obsessed engineers at my day job. Ask how much real work they produce....especially when they're platform biased. Oracle, anyone?)

KoffeeKommando
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Post by KoffeeKommando » Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:36 pm

A&H only makes mixers...and they had to hit a price point. So they went Dice II from TC. No problem if you never go down to 128 or 64 buffer.

Lynx costs quite a bit more. They make a performance car that can do 180 mph. It's all built in house, not subcontracted.

Subaru WRX vs. Ferrari. Not just nitpicking about specs, measurable performance difference. You buy the speed you can afford.

Thankfully there are guys like DAW Bench taking the time to explore (and discover!). Otherwise we'd be at the mercy of corporate marketing.

pretzels
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Post by pretzels » Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:06 pm

thanks, Kommando. i didn't realize that latency was a driver thing, i guess i always thought the extra processing power from a dedicated hard was there in part to help maintain the buffer size while tracking/playback. i just noticed the 'input only monitoring' option in PT9. does that help with latency? will have to do a little research...
ball means, dude.

www.glennlabs.net

KoffeeKommando
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Post by KoffeeKommando » Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:41 pm

Oh hey, you know what...we went a little more in depth about the "latency" thing in this thread. Read all of it:

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=78254

I learned/explored a few things I didn't know before. And I missed them because I've been lucky with my setup (MOTU + Cubase)

Basically, Pro Tools HD is the only DAW that automatically synchs the interface tightly to the software. But, Cubase has the capability to manually correct for AD/DA latency if the interface's drivers are sloppy.

Bottom line...if you don't have the mega $$$ to spend on proper Pro Tools, use a real quality interface with the *right* DAW. Lynx has a card that specifically "locks up" with Pro Tools (the LT-HD). So, you are "future proof" if you go with them. Read all our comments to the end. I linked a lot of important information.

Tim Casey
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Post by Tim Casey » Thu Dec 22, 2011 7:25 am

I use a Presonus Studiolive 16.4.2 Firewire mixer. $2000 for sixteen channels, four busses, and each channel has a very good EQ, compressor, and limiter, as does the master buss, all four busses, and all 6 aux sends. This is a serious live / recording tool. It also has two FX units, one for reverbs and the other for delays.

I'm running DP on a 3-year-old Macbook Pro at 48kHz and 24bits for a music TV show that we film once a month. Haven't had a problem yet, and Presonus preamps and convertors sound sweet to me.

As others have mentioned, Allen & Heath also make a Firewire board, but without the dynamic processors on each channel. The main selling point for me was doing away with outboard converters and all the cabling that goes with them. This thing connects to the laptop with one Firewire cable. It doesn't get simpler than that.

Highly recommended.

Code: Select all

http://www.presonus.com/products/detail.aspx?productid=52

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